Only Blood // Exodus 11:1-12:14

Introduction

Read Exodus 11:4-8, Exodus 12:1-13

From the moment that sin entered the world, a brokenness and separation occured between God and man. A perfect relationship was broken.

1. Just as an affair shatters a marriage, so mankind cheated on God, throwing their affections to something lesser than the one who loved their soul.

2. An adjustment would need to be made. Considerations were in order.

God made this consideration himself.

1. He killed two animals, and he gave their furs to Adam and Eve.

2. Adam and Eve were then, kaphar, or covered.

3. The Old Testament would use that word over 100 more times, yet you see it translated in English as atoned or atonement.

Atonement is a big scary theological word that simply means, covered.

1. God COVERS our sin.

2. It is one of the most beautiful truths of the Bible. We sing songs about how we are covered and free and loved.

3. However, there is someone who atonement isn’t so warm and fuzzy. That someone is the lamb.

The chapter after Adam and Eve fell, their sons had to offer sacrifices. We often skip straight to what Cain was doing to Abel and skip over what they were originally doing together, before the situation went downhill. They were sacrificing, and Abel was sacrificing a sheep.

From Genesis 4-Exodus 14, we see sacrifices commonly.

1. Job sacrificed as the father-priest of his family.

2. Noah built an altar as his first act off of the ark.

3. Always animal sacrifices, consistently given to God. Until Abraham.

God after promising Abraham a son, the first of a great nation, asked Abraham to sacrifice his son upon an altar. Abraham, obeying God, intending to sacrifice his son, until God provided a ram in the thicket. God’s provision saves man.

More sacrifices take place and altars are built, signifying atonement, or a covering of sin, so that man and God could relate. Sheep are a staple to Israel, not for food or clothing, but because something or someone has to pay the penalty for their sin as they interact with God. This brings us to Exodus 12.

Explanation - The Significance of the Passover

God tells Israel that he is going to deliver them through this final plague. Every firstborn child will be killed in Egypt, and Isreal will be spared, in only one way - if they kill a lamb, and their blood is smeared upon their doorposts.

The blood of the lamb would not simply offer a covering for sin but a deliverance into a new way of life.

The blood would not be based upon merit. All who are simply covered by the blood on their doorposts would be sweating.

Can you imagine how different Hebrews settled into bed that night?

Can you imagine the mothers and fathers who worried, anxious that God would not keep his promises?

Can you imagine the Israelite elite, sure in his pride that God could save him because he needed him - even though he smeared the blood on the door.

Can you imagine the Israelite man with some deep, dark sin, knowing what he deserved, and knowing that an angel with permission to kill would look at his doorpost that night.

Which of these Israelites made it through the night?

The anxious parents woke in the morning as did their children. The prideful man, distasteful to most but beloved by God woke. The Israelite man, struggling with sin, awoke without a scratch.

Israelites awoke from their towns in houses, shanties, and lean tos, realizing that the only commonality between all of them is their heritage of God’s love as God’s chosen people, and the mark of blood upon their door.

Only the blood could atone, and only the blood could deliver.

Isreal had been “passed over” by God. Every home that had the blood had been passed over.

The blood of the lamb does not end with the Passover. The passover was a moment of deliverance, but God was still working to rid the world of sin. The passover lamb would be enough to deliver Israel from Egypt, but it would not be enough to deliver Israel from her sins.

1. So God set up the sacrificial system in Leviticus. Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly sacrifices were started in Leviticus so that His people might be saved.

2. Even so, the sacrificial was not enough to atone for sin. The daily nature of atonement meant that the there was no “once for all” atonement for sin. However, Isaiah alludes to one who would come as a lamb.

English Standard Version Chapter 53

All we like sheep have gone astray;

we have turned—every one—to his own way;

and the LORD has laid on him

the iniquity of us all.

7  He was oppressed, and he was afflicted,

yet he opened not his mouth;

like a lamb that is led to the slaughter,

and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent,

so he opened not his mouth.

God was sending someone who would end sin forever. The Messiah, the Lamb of God.

Application - The Passover Forward

1200-1500 years later, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. His family would have to flee a tyrant who was killing children who threatened his throne, so they fled to Egypt. He would return from Egypt, grow into wisdom and stature with man and God as the son of God.

Upon his entrance to ministry, as he was baptized by John the Baptist, John would proclaim, “

English Standard Version Chapter 1

29 The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

He would gather disciples, teach them how to live, heal the sick, etc. His greatest work would be on the cross.

- It is not be accident that Jesus last meal with his disciples was on the passover.

As Jesus would go to the cross, he became the Passover Lamb. His blood was spread upon the cross so that death might be spared from us.

At once, we are delivered from sin.

Not because of our merit, but because blood was offered on our behalf.

Jesus was slain so that we might go free.

This life is our present reality. We take of the Lord’s Supper, because we remember what Christ did so that we can live in the life that he has for us.

1. We live in his death presently.

2. Because he died, we are able to live.

3. Be his wounds, we have been healed.

However, this Lamb of God was not dead. He rose on the third day, and he is now seated at the right hand of God.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

I have heard a song recently that said, “The Cross had the final word.” The cross had the final word on our sin. It was crucified on the cross. However, the cross did not have the final word about Jesus. Jesus’ work is continuing, and he will continue.

Have you noticed a common theme around the Lamb of God? Maybe it’s just your pastor, who is always looking for something to eat. In the Passover, the Lamb was eaten, and it instituted a celebration that happened every year! When we take of the Lords’s supper, like we did last year, we remember what God has done through the meal that we partake.

This brings my final point: The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

Revelation mentions the Lamb - 29 times! More than once a chapter.

The Lamb is worth. The Lamb can open the scrolls. The Lamb has conquered. The Lamb has taken away the sins of the world.

One day, God is going to invite us to the table for a final time. It won’t be from deliverance from worldly things. It won’s be atonement for sin. It will be an invitation into his presence, unadulterated by the world and sin, forever.

English Standard Version Chapter 19

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

6 Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out,

“Hallelujah!

For the Lord our God

the Almighty reigns.

7  Let us rejoice and exult

and give him the glory,

for the marriage of the Lamb has come,

and his Bride has made herself ready;

8  it was granted her to clothe herself

with fine linen, bright and pure”—

for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.

9 And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.” And he said to me, “These are the true words of God.”

Loving Jesus in the Wedding Supper of the Lamb.

The first meal displays God’s deliverance. The second meal displays God’s salvation. The third meal displays God’s presence. No longer will sin corrupt our relationship with God.

Our family was close, because my mom fixed a meal. We sat around the table, talked about our day, and grew closer.

I would love to go back to those meals around the table. Nothing replaces those moments.

Jesus’ dinner will be no different. We will sit and share in complete communion with Jesus.

These feasts are similar in so many ways, but do you know see the difference in the final feast - The Marriage Supper of the Lamb? BLOOD

No blood smeared on doorposts

No “this is my blood”

White linen and complete communion with God.

APPLICATION: The day is coming where there will be no sin in us because of Christ’s work, and therefore, there will be no need of blood.

Is Jesus your Lamb?